my second son alex was born. i had medical complications and was out of work for five months. the fmla saved my life by allowing me to keep my job while i recovered without the stress and trauma of having to worry about keeping my job. . it allude me to focus on my health and pregnancy when i needed. to i am so grateful that we could afford for me to take time off that i know most american families are not so fortunate. many cannot afford months or even weeks off without pay. it's time to do more and do better for women and families. dr. herb greenberg, the crowe, who is here today is a business leader who understands that. he supports the fmla and the drive to expand it because he

knows doing so is good for businesses as well as families. herb has been a leader in recognizing -- [applause] . herb has been a leader in recognizing the public policies like the fmla and new jersey's paid family leave insurance program creates standards of mutual respect between employers and employees. i am incredibly thankful to people like herb, the national partnership and a growing nationwide coalition that are working to expand leave policies. on behalf of the million of women and families who have been able to care for a newborn, a loved one or even themselves knowing that their job was secure because of fmla, thank you. thank you to congresswoman pelosi for your tireless work to help women and families not only hold down jobs but careers while caring for their fames. again, thank you for allowing me to share my story with you. thank you. [applause]

>> hello, everybody. i'm just delighted to be here with our wiffle speakers, my colleague and all of you here and especially the children that have join us today. i greatly appreciate leader pelosi gathering us here. i want to thank her and again my colleagues and everyone who's here for their leadership on this issue. you know, the responsibilities and certainties of life affect all of us. and the family and medical leave act is there to catch us when responsibilities and uncertainties of life really get in the way, as we say, with the things that we always want to do. well, the family and medical leave act has always been there, has also been there for our brave service men and women. in 2007 the national defense authorization act amenled the family medical leave act to allow eligible employees up to 12 bjork weeks of job-protected

leave for a need arising out of active duty or calls to active duty status of a spouse, a son, a daughter or a parent. in 2009 congress added coverage for military caregiver leave for a qualified family member of certain veterans with a serious injury or illness. we know that recovering from their wounds, so many service members have expressed to me their gratitude of having the ability of a loved one to take leave under the fmla in order to help them along their journey. and i can recall meeting a mother at balboa medical center who was taking advantage of this and being there by her son's side was so critical and so important and she had the security of knowing that she could go back to her job. how well we deal with the challenges of life is often

based on how supported we feel. and the fmla gives us the time, it gives us the protection to care for others and for ourselves. so as we honor the anniversary of this important quality of life legislation, it's critical to recognize not only the economic impacts but also the support provided to our service members who we know are the backbone of our national security. i'm honored to acknowledge congresswoman fudge. [applause] >> thank you. good afternoon. i would like to thank occur leader and i say she is our leader, not just the leader of the democratic caucus, but she is the leader of this congress. [laughter] let's remember that. [applause] i am certainly pleased to be here today to talk about fmla and -- because it is in fact one of the most important and

effective pieces of legislation ever signed by this congress. by this house of representatives. over 20 years ago. we all know life is about choices. fmla makes choices easier. it gives you the opportunity to choose between a sick parent and keeping your job. it gives you the opportunity to choose between a newborn and keeping your job. it gives you the opportunity to say to your employer, i'm a great employee, i need some help, can you help me? and having been an employer, i know how important it is to say, yes, we give you the choice and your job is going to be safe. so i want to thank everyone who understands and recognizes the significance of this legislation and say to the members of this house, we have much work to do to make it better, but certainly it's a great start. thank you. [applause] >> i want to start by thanking leader pelosi. thank you for commemorating the 20-year ainsvess -- anniversary

of this landmark law and thank you for all your work in making working families a priority. it's a privilege to be here with my colleagues who know the importance of strengthening and celebrating the family medical and leave act. since 1993, this law has given 100 million working men and women time off they need to care for themselves or a sick family member. now, one of these working women is with us today, vivian mchail. and she's here from maine with her daughter, nadia. at 16 months, nadia was diagnosed with a rare auto immune condition which left her completely deaf in both ears. vivian knew that nadia would need her full-time attention and fmla was there for her. it meant not having to choose between her job and her family. it's hard to imagine being in vivian's situation and having to tell your child that you can't be by your side as she faces a medical challenge that would terrify any adult. and that's the choice no parent should have to make. but the sad reality is too many

still do because only half of americans qualify under fmla and millions can't afford to take advantage of the unpaid leave it offers. the family medical and leave act was a big step forward and now it's time to build on what was accomplished 20 years ago. i am thankful to be here with so many of these strong leaders in congress who are fight to do just that. now please join me in welcoming vivian mchail. [applause] >> thank you very much for that kind introduction. good afternoon, leader pelosi, representative miller, representative delauro. my name is vivian mchail and i'm incredibly honored to be here today from maine. when my daughter, nadia, was born in october of 2004 i took fmla leave for the happiest of reasons. shortly before her second birthday i again took fmla leave for a most unexpected, terrifying and all-consuming reason.

nadia developed an extremely rare and difficult to diagnose autoimmune condition which among other things left her profoundly deaf in both ears. and at one point was feared to cause life-threatening complications. it quickly became clear that in order to seize all possible medical interventions, to try and restore nadia to health, and try to save her hearing in a rapidly closing window of time my fast-pace job would not be capacityble for a while with the new intense care giving role i was to fill. without the option of taking fmla leave, i cannot conceive of how i would have done for nadia all she needed. appointments with specialists, outpatient infusions, inpatient hospital stays, pre and postop visits, learning american sign language and hundreds of hours of speech and auditory rehabilitation therapy and support once she received the

bilateral coke lar implants which which she is now hear again. [applause] much of which was all located in boston. at least a two-hour drive each way. unpaid leave was hard but without fmla leave, we would have suffered financial losses likely too great to recover from during nadia's childhood. as i was the primary wage earner and the source of health insurance for our family. nadia's now 8 years old and is a thriving, engaging second grader, mainstreamed in our town's wonderful elementary school. it was for her and for all the girls, women and families in maine that i became involved with the maine women's policy center, to support its work on issues such as the fmla as one of 20 state coalitions that make up the family values at work consortium. i'm proud that maine's family leave law now covers domestic

partners and companies of just 15 or more. i have served on the board of the maine's women policy center for almost three years now and look forward to remaining engaged and active in these issues because of their vital importance to our work force and the families who depend on them. in my own family's experience, the fmla was nothing short of an investment in my daughter nadia as a future member of our lives and of our society. thank you for having me here. and thank you for the work that you do to strengthen the family and our country's families. [applause] >> i told you the -- that vivian would be our v.i.p. for the day. the stories tell a story of america's family values. and how those family values have to be respected in the

work we do here. so it can translate into how people can bond with their children, with their parents, with someone who is sick in the familiar. it makes all the difference in the world. we've been having celebrations because both president clinton signed the family medical leave act shortly after his inauguration, so did -- so too did president obama sign the lilly ledbetter legislation, right as the first bill that he sign, focus on families in the workplace and how they are affected. last week under the leadership of the national partnership, we had a tremendous george miller was the hero there because he had been a leader in passing. the babies were adorable as they are here today. and so i thank you, deborah, last night deborah and judy,

judy, the national treasurer, and that was 20 years ago, imagine now her value. [laughter] hosted a celebration from the senate side and here we are now. they will go to the labor department for further acknowledgment of how important this is. and why do we make such a fuss? well, vivian and matari told us why. but i want to also acknowledge the mothers who are here. wendy and her son julian. [applause] there. vickie and her son jasper. there. hey, jasper. give a wave. give a wave, jasper. all right, jasper! erica and baby keira. and baby keira is two months -- 2 months old. and in case you didn't notice, a large number of people here have their supermom t-shirts. this is moms rising. they're about a million strong

now. thank you, moms rising. [applause] carol and daughter tamara. [applause] thank you. alicia and her daughter kate. all right. hey, kate. cute. and the michigan fmla, a story, that care giving for senior parents. this isn't just about parents to children. it's about children to parents as well. and dr. greenberg has been acknowledged. thank you. he was acknowledge last night, today. he's a hero in all of this. thank you. and ellen bravea, family values at work. thank you. [applause] the list could go on and on of the people. senator chris dodd. i do want to mention because

i'm so happy to be here with george miller and rosa delauro, we were there at a time that our newer members, congresswoman bonamici, congresswoman marcia fudge, congresswoman susan davis, when did you come, susan? you came in 2000. 2001. well, -- i think in terms of elections, 2000. [laughter] 2001. but has been such a champion on our veterans. so honored to be here with our colleagues. very honored to be here with our special guest. and this is about as important an issue as there can be. have families meet their obligations to each other. what that means to children's future, what that means to our intergenerational response -- responsibilities. but as george miller said, and others have indicated, more needs to be done. we want paid sick leave, we want paid family and medical leave. and this is again talking about family values. so, again, when you see president clinton today, tell him how much we appreciated his leadership and his signature.

but there's one more person i want to mention because she did so much work and she taught us so much along the way. and that's congresswoman patricia schroeder. oh, my god. she worked so hard. [applause] she worked so hard and she just taught us that we were never going to give up until this was the law. again, we could name lots of members and you probably think that we will. i could talk all day about this and you probably think that i will but at any event we thank all of you for coming and joining us for this important work that has been done. now a generation old, now we need to work harder to improve upon. it so thank you all very much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013]

>> on capitol hill today, the house judiciary committee held a day-long hearing looking at immigration policy. committee member, a republican from south carolina, said that immigration reform should focus on the rule of law. and not politics. here's some of what he had to say. gutierrez. now i recognize the chairman o >> af couple years ago a young african alter spoke at a high school in south carolina. she was a beautiful, talented young woman. african author spoke at a high school in carolina. she was a beautiful, talented young woman. when she lifted her arm to brush away the hair from her eyes, i saw something i have never seen before, at least not in this country, which was somee's hands had been cut off with a machete. when she was 12 years old living

in sierra lee own, rebel soldiers came to her village in the civil war. she tried to run, she tried to hide. she asked god to let her die. the soldiers found her and cut off her hands and mockingly told her to go to the president and ask for another pair. and that 12-year-old girl, mr. airman, remembered thinking to heelf what's a president. collectively, mr. chairman, we understand why people want to come to the country, to escape and get an education and level playing field can transform lives. escaping conflict and hardship is one thing, picking a home is another. we are a country that embres justice, we reward fairness, we are a nation of laws. the poorest of the poor has the sametanding in court as the richest of the rich. we believe in the even

application of the law because law provides order, structure, predictability and security. and what we cannot become is a nation where the law is enforced selectively or not at all. what we cannot become, mr. chairman, where laws are applied to some of the people some of the time. the president from time to time, mr. chairman, sayshat he want a country where everyone plays by the same rules. with respect, they aren't called rules in this country, they're called laws. anea of us takes an oath to enforce them, including those with which we may disagree. because when theaw was ignored or applied in an uneven way, we see erosion of the foundation upon which this republic was built. and make no mistake, mr. chairman, as surely as one may benefit from noncompliance or nonenforcement of a law, that same person will be clamoring to have the l enforced in another capacity. so we seek to harm onnize two

foundational presepts, mr. chairman. number one is humanity, and number two, respect for a rule of law. history is whispering, mr. chairman, that we have traveled this road before. in 1986 we were told immigration had been settled once and for all. we were told in exchange for secure borders and unemployment verification, those that entered the country illegally would not suffer the full panoply of legal consequences. in the minds of many, mr. chairman, the country got amnesty but is waiting 25 years later on boarder security and unemployment verification. here we are again, aski our feow citizens to trust us, and many despite ourselves, mr. chairman, remain open to legislative expressions of humanity and grace, but they will be watching, skeptically, to see if we enforce the law. are we serious about ending human trfficking. are we serious about punishing

those that prey on folks with false promises and fraudulent documents. are we serious about border security, unemployment verification. are we serious aut making this the last, last time we have this conversation or are we simply playing political games with people's lives and undercutting the respect [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> a correspondent for "the hill." when you discuss immigration reform one doesn't immediately think of lobbyists but how are lobbyists impacting the shaping of immigration policy during this congress? >> well, lobbyists are having a huge impact on the shaping of immigration policy of this congress. essentially you've got representatives from k street from all various sectors, as well as civil rights, gay rights groups weighing in on

the bill. they could have a huge effect on what eventually we come out with of course we don't have a final bill yet. and this only gives more influence in the process because we still have such a long way to go until we get to a finalized piece of legislation that will be voted on by members of congress. >> who are the lobbyists talking to on capitol hill? >> essentially where they're starting in the process of trying to influence the bill is this bipartisan gang of eight senators who have come out with reform principles. again, that's not a bill. so there could be a chance to change that. and move forward. also, we had a hearing today at -- by the house judiciary committee, we'll have another one held by the senate judiciary committee. those members are going to get the first crack at essentially what will be that piece of legislation that will reach the floor of both chambers.

so those are essentially the most influential lawmakers that lobbyists want to get in touch with. >> who are some of the interest groups that are seeking to be heard? >> there's quite a few. there's more than just one tech group but one group i mentioned in the story, the information technology industry council, there's a multitude of gay rights groups that are interested in the bill. i mentioned immigration equality. my story, you also have a number of coalitions. there's a new coalition called the agricultural work force coalition. you are also going to have labor and business involved in this debate. starting with the u.s. chamber of commerce as well as the afl-cio and the service employees international union. >> what issues are same-sex partners hoping to be included in an immigration bill? >> essentially they're hoping to be treated the same as straight couples.

essentially if you're a u.s. citizen you could sponsor your partner for a green card. but this is an -- but this isn't afforded to if your partner is of the same-sex. so essentially they want to get that straightened out and fix. it's gotten support from the white house as well as the congressional hispanic caucus. so they definitely have some powerful players in their corner. they felt that they were ignore in the senate reform principles that were put out. so that's going to be a big hurdle for them to clear. >> business leaders have a stake in making changes to visas and guest worker programs. what are they looking for? >> essentially what they're looking for is to remove arbitrary caps on several of these visa programs. a lot of these visa programs, especially when the economy's doing really well and there's a lot of jobs available in the country, they fill up pretty

quickly. visas for high-skill immigrants , the tech really wants that, wants more of those. you also have the h-2-b visas for foreign workers kind of for nonagricultural seasonal businesses. and you also have the h-2-a visa program which is mostly for agricultural workers. all these visa programs either have an arbitrary cap or are not being used that widely. basically that what businesses is want is they want to adjust these programs to the market so they can kind of rise and fall with demand. >> we thank you for your time today. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> if you go to most american hivetry textbooks i would also make you a bet, if you go back to the textbooks you had in high high school, you can take me up on my bet, but my bet with you is that in your

american history textbooks in high school, if you go to the index, you will find no mention of eugenics. my further bet with you is if you go to your biology books in high school, you'd find no mention of the word eugenics. i just looked at the biology book assigned by most of the courses here for intro bio courses at montana state university, great textbooks, but i didn't see any mention of eugenics. it's as if because we, meaning scientists, no longer believe in eugenics, we don't have to think about it. it's as if we historians, because we know eugenics was so awful, we can somehow pretend that it wasn't part of american culture. >> eugenics in early 20th century america. part of lectures on history, saturday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span 3's "american history tv."

>> when he left office the budget was lower than when he came in. that's the story for us now in a period where we're concerned, well, how did he do that? the economy grew a lot. maybe more than 2% sometimes. unemployment was below 5%. the budget was balanced due to his own idea. how would he manage to keep making the budget go lower and how did that help the economy a lot? because he got the government out of the way of the economy. >> the life of the 30th president of the united states in "cool age." sunday night at 8:00 on c-span's "q&a." >> the congressional budget office today said this year's budget deficit will be under $1 trillion for the first time since president obama took office. the c.b.o. also estimates the economy will grow 1.4% this year with unemployment remaining around 8%.

c.b.o. director sat down with reporters this afternoon to discuss the economic and budget forecast. >> hello. thank you all for coming. i'm the director of the budget office. c.b.o. just released its outlook for the federal budget and the economy over the next decade. i'd like to tell you a little bit about if and then my colleagues and i will be happy to take your questions. our analysis shows that the united states continues to face very large economic and budget challenges. under current law we expect that the unemployment rate will remain above 7.5% through next year. that would make 2014 the sixth year in a row with unemployment so high. the longest such period in 70 years. also under current law, we expect the budget deficits over the next decade would total about $7 trillion.

with deficits so high, the federal debt held by the public would remain a larger percentage of g.d.p. as in any year between 1951 and 2012. by the end of the decade, debt would be 77% of g.d.p. and on an upward path. let me elaborate on those points beginning with the budget, beginning with the economy, rather, and then turning to the budget. we anticipate that economic growth will remain slow this year. because the gradual improvement that we see in underlying economic factors will be offset by a tightening of federal fiscal policy scheduled under current law. the good news is that the affects of the housing and financial crisis appear to be gradually a winning. we expect that an upswing in housing construction, rising real estate and stock prices

and increasing availability of credit will help to spur a virtual white house cycle of -- virtual cycle of consumer spending and business investment over the next few years. however, several policies that will help to bring down the budget deficit will represent a drag on economic activity this year. the expiration of the two percentage point cuts in the social security payroll tax, the increase in tax rates on income above certain thresholds and the cuts in federal spending scheduled to take effect next month will mean reduced spending by both consumers and the government. we project inflation adjusted g.d.p. will increase about 1.5% in 2013. but it will increase roughly 1.5% fast if not for the fiscal tightening. after the economy adjusts to

that fiscal restraint, we expect the growth in real g.d.p. will pick up to about 3.5% per year in 2014 and the following few years. but the gap between the nation's g.d.p. and what it is capable of producing on a sustainable basis, what we call potential g.d.p., will not close quickly at that rate of growth. under current law, we expect output to remain below its potential level until 2017. almost a decade after the recession started in december of 2007. by our estimates, g.d.p. was more than 5% below its potential level in the fourth quarter of last year. a gap that is only modestly smaller than the gap that existed three years ago. because growth in output since then has been only slightly faster than growth in potential output. the nation has paid and will continue to pay a very large price for the recession and slow recovery. we estimate that the total loss

of output relative to the economy's potential between 2007 and 2017 will be equivalent to nearly half the output produced in the country last year. with the gap between actual and potential output, projected to close only slowly, we expect the unemployment rate to stay near 8% this year, to fall below 7% only in 2015 and to reach 5.5% in 2017. let me turn now to the budget. under current laws, the federal deficit will shrink in 2013 for the fourth year in a row. at an estimated $845 billion, the deficit would be the first in five years below $1 trillion. and at 5.25% of g.d.p. it would be only half as large relative to the size of the economy as the deficit was in 2009.

our projections based on current laws show deficits continuing to fall over the next few years. reaching about 2.5% of g.d.p. in 2015. before turning up again to nearly 4% by the end of the decade. a big reason for declining deficits is the federal revenues are projected to grow because of both the expanding economy and changes in tax rules that are scheduled under current law. as a result, we expect that revenues, which were less than 16% of g.d.p. in 2012, will be about 19% in 2015. under current law we expect that revenues will then remain at roughly 19% of g.d.p. for the rest of the decade. compared with an average shown in the picture of about 18% over the past 40 years. at the same time under current law, our projections show federal spending falling relative to the size of the economy over the next several years. spending that goes up when the

economy is weak, like unemployment benefits, is expected to drop off. and the caps on discretionary spending will restrain spending. after 2017, though, spending in our projections starts growing again as a percentage of g.d.p. the aging of the population, increasing health care costs and a significant expansion of eligibility for federal subsidies for health insurance will push up spending on social security and the major health care programs. in addition, the return of interest rates to more normal levels will push up interest payments to their highest share of g.d.p. in five decades. during the past 40 years, federal spending has averaged 21% of g.d.p. in our projection for 2023, spending is about 23% of g.d.p. and rising. what would debt look like under those circumstances? we expect that, again, under current law, federal debt held by the public will reach 76 of

g.d.p. by the end of this fiscal year. the largest percentage since 1950. >> as recently as 2007, debt was only 36% of g.d.p. debt would be 70% of -- 77% of g.d.p. and rising. rough stability in debt as a share of g.d.p. over the next 10 years would be a welcome development after a sharp upward surge during the past few years. but debt between 70% and 80% of g.d.p. and rising would remain a significant concern for several reasons. first, the crowding out of capital investment will be greater. lawmakers will have less flexibility than they might ordinarily have to use tax and

spending policies to respond to unexpected challenges like a recession or a war. and there will be a heightened risk of a fiscal crisis in which the government would be unable to borrow at affordable rates. those are all affects of having such a high debt to g.d.p. ratio. but second, debt would be even larger if current laws were modified as they've been in the past to delay or undo certain scheduled changes in policy. for example, if lawmakers eliminated the automatic spending cuts scheduled to take effect in march, but left in place the original caps from the budget control act, if they prevented the sharp reduction in medicare's payment rates to physicians from taking effect early next year, and if they extended the tax provisions that are scheduled to expire, then budget dev sits would be substantially larger than in their baseline projections. and debt held by the public would rise to 87% of g.d.p. in 2023, rather than the 77% under current law.

third, debt might also be larger in our projections because even the original caps on discretionary funding would reduce such spending to an unusually small amount relative to the size of the economy. and that might be difficult to sustain. c.b.o. projects that with just those original caps in place, discretionary spending would equal 5.8% of g.d.p. in 2023. a smaller share than any year in at least the past 50. because the allocation of discretionary spend something determined by annual appropriation acts, lawmakers have not yet decided which specific government services and benefits will be reduced or constrained to meet the specified limits. and, fourth, projections for the 10-year period covered in this report do not fully reflect long-term budget pressures. because of the aging of the population and rising health care costs, a wide gap exists between the future cost of the benefits and services for the

public is accustomed to receiving from the government, especially in the form of benefits for older americans and the tax revenues for the public has been sending to the government. it is possible to keep the policies for those large benefit programs unchanged. but only by raising taxes substantially for a broad segment of the population. alternativetively it is possible to keep tax revenues at their historical percentage of g.d.p. but only by making substantial cuts relative to current policies in the large benefit programs that aid a broad group of people at some point in their lives. deciding now what combination of policy changes to make to resolve that imbalance would allow for gradual implementation. which would give households, businesses and state and local governments time to plan and time to adjust their behavior. thank you. we're happy to answer your questions.

>> can you say who you are and where you're from. >> this is less a budget issue and more your economic projections. there's been a lot of discussion, as you know, about quantitative easing and how the fed undoes this bold experiment. you're looking at,ify understand your economic projections, roughly 4% g.d.p. growth at a time when the 10-year yield is somewhere around 5.2% and core inflation is still not getting above 2%. those three seem hard to line up. can you talk a little bit about how you are going to approach this and how difficult is this from a normal period in our economic history? >> this is a highly unusual period in our economic history, of course. we expect that federal reserve will start to raise the federal funds rate in 2016. and start to sell out of its

portfolio later in 2016, under current law and budget projections and economic projections that we have in this report. that would amount to an extraordinarily long period of extraordinarily low interest rates. that is what the fed says it is trying to do in order to provide as much support to the economy as it can. and we expect they will continue to provide that support. the interest rate on 10-year treasury notes will start to rise sooner, though, we expect, because those rates reflect not just current short-term rates but expectations of future short-term rates and we think financial market participants will begin to look more and more to the period after the federal reserve has brought interest rates, brought short-term rates back up to more normal level. so we have the long-term rate heading up sooner than the short-term rate. that is not particularly unusual. we have the short-term rate heading up at a point where we think the unemployment rate

would be coming down decisively and comet would be working its way back closer to potential output. and inflation would be coming up toward the 2% rate that the fed says it's targeting. >> you're not worried -- obviously a lot of debate on can they withdraw support and not have higher than normal core inflation? you guys looking at past history or -- >> we expect that they will be able to reduce the size of the balance sheet and raise interest rates in a way that prevents inflation from going beyond their 2% target. as you know, they have tools they have not had in the past, in particular the ability to pay interest on reserves. but it's hard to look at historical episodes and get a very clear reading because we are in circumstances we have not been in before and they are doing things they have not done before. >> bob samuels, "the washington post," you say that the

recovery has been so slow that the gap between actual output and your calculation of potential output hasn't changed very much. over the last few years. my question is, is this pattern of recovery substantially different from previous recoveries? in other words, in previous recoveries did we reach the potential much sooner than in this recovery? and secondly, you seem to have a-- seem to assume that there is going to be a pickup so we will get to your estimate of potential at 2016 or 2017? >> yeah. >> what do you base that on? in other words, if week of been growing less -- if we haven't had that sort of boost above potential until now, why would you expect we would get it now? >> as you know, this is very unusual to have output fall short of potential output for this long. the only previous episode i'm aware of was in the great

depression. but if one looks on the previous episode in this country, but if one looks at the experience around the world with financial crises, it is often the case that output remains well below the economy's potential, that a lot of unemployment remains high, a lot of resources remain unused for a considerable period of time. while households and businesses reduce the leverage they have often acquired leading into such financial crises. as we look at the economy, and i think as many private analysts look at the economy today, it appears that the process of deleveraging has gone on to a significant extent. household wealth is rising now. stock prices are rising. house prices are rising. mortgage debt is falling. so we think households are in a stronger position to spend than they have been. business investment was not particularly strong for aft year as a whole but seem to be doing well again for the end of

the year in terms of its growth rate. we think that state and local governments will be providing less of a drag on the economy. we wrote a report last fall about the sources of the slow growth, the slow recovery. one very important factor in our assessment was the cuts that local governments have been making in their spending in response to the loss of revenue that they've suffered. so we think that factor is improving. so we think there are a number of elements of demand for goods and services in the economy that are picking up. the housing market is another important one to mention. although it is rebounding from a low level, it is clearly rebounding at this point. where essential investment is growing, house sales are rising. so across the economy we see momentum building. and i think that is consistent with experience in other

countries at some period of time, in which growth resumes. now, on top of that, in our forecast, is the affects of the fiscal tightening -- effects of the fiscal tightening for 2013 which this year we think offsets most of that gathering strength of the economy. but we think by the time the economy has adjusted to the tightening this year, again, our projections are made on current law, then next year and beyond we'll see faster economic growth. there are important risks around that forecast. we think on both the upside and the down side. but we think it is a reasonable middle ground given what we see in the economy today. >> kind of 1 1/2 questions if i could. first, you talked about the fiscal drag from this year. can you give us any estimates for each of those three elements? or really specifically the sequester and how much of a drag that would be? and also, there's an increase in ag spending from $11 billion

to $23 billion in your mandatory spending. just was wondering what that reflected or what the situation is there. >> on the first question, about fiscal tightening, what we've said in the report is that we see a total of about 1.5% of g.d.p. affect the fiscal tightening. remember, the fiscal tightening is in our baseline projection. so g.d.p. growth would be 1.5% faster this year without any of that tightening. we've said that 1.25% of that comes from the big factors that people talked about, including and we analyzed last fall, that 1.25%, about half goes to the sequester and about half goes to the increases in taxes from both the expiration of the 2% cut in the payroll tax and higher tax rates on higher incomes. and then the remaining .25% is due to other facters in the budget. so that's the breakdown. that's really as precise as we

think we can reasonable be. as -- reasonably be. as for the extra half question, increase in the agriculture spending, i'm afraid i can't speak to that directly. i don't know if any of my colleagues know that offhand. if not beal have -- we'll have to get back to you separately. >> i have two questions. the first is for a colleague, it's really inside baseball. in your june, 2012, report you had debt to g.d.p. at 200% by 2037. and my colleague wants to know, based on this current report it sounds like you've pushed that back three years to 2040. >> i don't think you can draw that conclusion. your colleague is referring to our long-term budget outlook from last june which looks out 25 years and somewhat beyond that. we have not updated those long-term projections yet. we will aim to do that later again this year. so we don't know how the change in the projections for the first decade will affect the

path of debt beyond that. >> how do you factor in things like the fracking revolution or do you not factor in circumstances like that? >> we are -- we do try to factor that sort of effect in. we actually have a separate analysis under way on the effects of fracking on the economy. and our preliminary insights from that analysis are in this forecast. our view is that fracking is good for the u.s. economy, relative to not having fracking at all. but that the effect is probably smaller than some of the more enthusiastic supporters have said. and moreover that our economic forecasts don't generally pick out the specific elements of innovation in techniques or shifts in the composition of output. five and 10 years in the

future. we're looking at sort of a cruder approach which is to try to stack up labor and capital resources in some sense of overall productivity. so our projections always have in them a certain amount of new ideas coming along that aren't originally foreseen. given the potential importance of fracking, though, as i said, we are doing separate analysis of that. it's not quite complete. >> you talked about how debt to g.d.p. is now around 76%, it's much higher than the average. one of the big debates in washington is obviously how much additional deficit reduction should be done. do you have a sense or do you guys have any projections about how much additional deficit reduction it would take to stabilize the debt to g.d.p.? >> i'm not sure i know that fact exactly. as we show in our report, i can go back to the crucial picture, the debt to g.d.p. ratio at the end of this year we think will be 76% of g.d.p.

but then declines in our projection to around 73% of g.d.p. and comes back up to 77% at the end. what the right level of geth debt is relative to g.d.p. is not a question to which economists have an analytic answer. what we have said consistent with the consensus view in profession is that high levels of debt have costs and risks. the costs or the crowding out of investment and the production of output in income that comes with that, the risks are particularly the inability of policymakers to respond to unexpected developments. notice that in the last six years, the debt to g.d.p. ratio has risen from 36% to 76%. because of the financial crisis, the recession and the policy responses to that. if we were to be running along at 76% or 77% of g.d.p. and we were doing counter-- and we were to encounter another recession or a more serious recession, financial crisis, then there would be much less room to move.

and countries that find themselves with very high debt to g.d.p. and then encounter economic problems or international circumstances which they need to respond really find themselves in very bad and dangerous circumstances. so, at this level of debt relative to g.d.p., our country would be incurring costs and bearing risks of a sort that we have not in our history, except for a few years around the end of the second world war. at the same time, bringing debt down relative to g.d.p. requires reductions in benefits and services that we're getting from the government or higher taxes paid to the government. we released another report today that looks at the macroeconomic effects and we lay out some alternatives, not recommending any of them, but showing the consequences. another benchmark we might have in mind is i said we've gone from 36% to 76% between 2007 and 2013. suppose that you wanted to reverse that runup and we're

pretty patient, so you would wait to do it over the next 40 years. so that is 40 percentage points of g.d.p., over 40 years, so you want a one percentage point per year. not optimal policy in any sense. a feel for magnitude. that reduction would lead from you 76% at the end of this year to say 66% at the end of 2023 over these 10 years. but 66% as compared with 77% in our current law baseline, so you would -- to get that slight downward slope, would you need to reduce debt by 11% of g.d.p. in 2023. that's about $2.75 trillion. if you did this gradually you'd have some debt service savings, when you got to 2023, over this period it would build up, but you'd still need maybe $2.25 trillion savings from lower benefits and services or higher taxes over the decade. so put debt on that sort of gradual downward trajectory. and some people would argue

that we shouldn't push debt down that far. and they're implicitly saying they are comfortable or willing to bear the costs and the risks. other people will say that we shouldn't wait so lock, we shouldn't be on a 40-year path, we should do it faster. and they're implicitly saying they're willing to accept a larger cut in benefits and services or a larger increase in taxes that are -- than are built into current law. that's a choice that we as citizens need to make and that our elected representatives need to make on our behalfs. >> i take it from what you're saying that you're not buying -- there's an argument from the administration and some think tanks and various people that the u.s. government is within a short lunge of the goal line after all the work that's been done and -- and by the way, the goal line has been stabilizing the debt rather than reducing

it. so i take it you don't buy. that the other thing is, the way you've reduced your medium term growth projections and treasury rate projections, to what extent is that on deficit reduction if it's being made over the last two years? >> on the first point, we've said many times and still think that the minimum requirement for sustainable fiscal policy is a stable ratio of debt to g.d.p. as we said before, debt cannot continue to rise relative to g.d.p. indefinitely. and over this decade, we're showing a ratio of debt to g.d.p. that is roughly stable. but as we say in the report, and as i opened with here, there are costs and risks of maintaining debt at that level. moreover, as you can see in the back half of the 10-year window and will see in our next long-term budget outlook, although i don't know -- we haven't quantified it yet, you'll see that deficits are rising and debt is rising

relative to g.d.p. that's because the underlying forces that are widening this imbalance, the aging of the population and rising spending on health care, those forces are still at work. so, although over this decade debt looks roughly stable as a share of g.d.p., you can see it in the second half of the decade and from the work that we and many people have done about the forces driving the budget, that that is not going to last. as far as revisions to the economic forecast, our economic forecast is stronger in the near term because the legislation enacted at the beginning of january took away a large share of the fiscal tightening that was scheduled to appear -- occur this year and that we had built into our forecast last summer. so our economic forecast is brighter than your -- in the near term because the fiscal tightening has busy been reduced.

in our outlook, in the appendix we break down the affects of different factors -- effects of different facters in changing our budget projections and i think the net effect of the economic factors was slightly positive but small in terms of the 10-year deficit. but the -- far and away the most important thing that happened in our -- between our last projection and this one was the enactment of this legislation in january. and i think the second most important thing that happened was that revisions to spending on some of the federal government's health programs. >> do you have an estimate of if you have $1 trillion in deficit rediction, what kind of job growth that creates over 10 years? did you make that kind of projection or not? >> we have not done any estimates of the effects of the different 10-year paths on job growth and this -- in this report we released today. we have done estimates before of the effects on unemployment,

of changes in fiscal policy in the short-term. so, in this report, on the outlook where we talk about the extra 1.5% of g.d.p. that we would have we think at the end of 2013, if not for the fiscal tightening, that extra 1.35% of g.d.p. would translate to about two million additional jobs. by the end of 2013. if none of the fiscal tightening that is scheduled in current law actually took effect and that estimate is consistent with the estimates and the report we released last fall about the -- both the output and employment effect of the components of fiscal tightening that were in place then. maybe to be more specific, of that two million jobs total, again, most of that is due to the combination of maybe 1 1/2 million of that is due to the combination of the sequester and the tax provisions and those effects are each about half. that 1 1/2 million and that

other 1 1/2 million comes from the collection of smaller policies that are contributing to fiscal tightening. >> you're farrell two million jobs this year, what certainty do you have that we're going to gain them back in future years from the deficit reduction we're seeing now? >> first of all, i'd like to emphasize, we are not fairly certain of these numbers. we are making the best estimates we can and in fact in much of our work about the economic effects of fiscal policy we report ranges of estimates precisely to show the uncertainty that those estimates involve. but we think that right now the economy is suffering as it has for the last several years from a shortfall in the demand for goods and services, lack of desired spending by households and businesses and governments and the federal reserve has been trying to offset that

weakness in demand with stimulative monetary policy but has limitations that you're all aware of. so, under those circumstances, withdrawing demand by households and by government through higher taxes and through sequestration, we think makes that gap between actual potential output larger and pushes the unemployment rate up. but as we look out five and 10 years from now, we think, for reasons i've discussed, that the underlying economic momentum will bring the economy back toward a potential output will bring the unemployment rate back down, will allow the federal reserve to bring the short-term interest rate back up again. under those circumstances then fiscal policy has somewhat different effects on the economy. in the medium run an long run, then the way to -- the fiscal policy can best contribute to economic growth is by reducing

borrowing, freeing up funds for investment and perhaps by changing the incentives to work and save that are in fact policy and in federal benefit programs. so there's different economic circumstances over the next few years relative to later on and we think that the policies that would restrain growth today would also bring down deficits, would ultimately be beneficial once the economy returned to a sustainable level of employment and output. >> lisa from the "l.a. times." house republicans are considering a budget this year that will have a 10-year balance. i'm wondering if you could address it all without obviously singing out what the budget and economic implications of that could be and is that time window of 10 years, you know, how does that

sort of mesh with some of the examples you said earlier about like a 1% reduction in four years. >> our baseline projection of the deficit for 2023 is about $1 trillion. so to balance the budget in 2023 would require reduction in the deficit, relative to current law, of about $1 trillion. . if one got there gradly over the course of the next decade on the order of $4 trillion relative to current law. and in fact, in the other report, the economic effects of alternative budget paths we have an example we picked independent of any particular discussions on the hill, one of our examples was $4 trillion in ends up $9 trillion.

$2 trillion cumulative reduction and we looked at a range of possibilities. the amount of deficit reduction to balance the budget in 2023 is a large number. and not from the current law baseline but from current policies, then the deficit reduction required will be even greater. the economic effects of that depend on the timing and on the nature of the changes in policies. so our analysis today of alternative macroeconomics of alternative budget paths looks at total amounts of deficit change and does not incorporate any specific proposals on effects to work and to save. we analyze those in specific policies. and whenever the policy makers would do to reduce the deficit, the economic effect will be depend on how they do it and it depends on the timing.

sharp deficit reduction, next few years, given the large amount of slack in the economy, given the constraints on the federal reserve's actions would reduce output and employment in the next few years by our estimates and that is consistent with the work we have done in the recovery act and several years running to stimulate the economy and increase employment. and consistent with consensus. deficit reduction in the short run would negative short-term effects on the economy. deficit reduction later would have positive medium and long-term effects on the economy. so the set of effects that would occur over a decade in response to a particular budgetary path would depend on when this reduction would occur in addition to the composition in the change in policy. i don't mean to be vague, but

there is no more explicit answer that would apply to any possible way of achieving the goal you mentioned. yes? >> talk about your h-42, the stinlts -- estimates -- [inaudible question] >> there is an append discs that gives the year-by-year economic predictions and you flip to page 64 can see on a year by year basis. interest rates are two-thirds of the way down on that table on page 64. you can see as i mentioned before, the short-term interest rate, the -- stays extremely low through 2015 but then moves up

rapidly in 2016, 2017 and then in 2018 up 4%. and that happens in our forecast because we think the strengthening of the economy by 2016, the reduction in the unemployment rate, we think will have occurred by then. and will leave the federal reserve to tighten policy. in addition to the interest rate, we think the federal reserve will start to sell assets from the portfolio beginning in 2016. the long-term interest rates move up basically in anticipation of the path of short rates. so we think market participants who expect the federal reserve to raise short rates will start to raise long-term rates ahead of that. long-term rates start up.

tiny bit this year and more next year and in 2015. and at the back half of the 10-year window, we end up with both short and long-term rates that are 20 boys is points higher than we had in our august projection. based on current law which showed much smaller deficits. long-term rates are higher in long-term than we had in this country and that also reflects the higher amount of debt, federal debt relative to g.d.p. than we have had over the past several decades. >> "washington post." thinking about how we should view the budget battles over the last two years. we are stabilizing debt at a

much higher level. to what extent is that a result of decisions that were made by lawmakers and to what extent that is the underlying recovery in the economy? >> both factors and we have not tried to quantify them. one can look at our projections over the past several years and basically add up each successive revision, so every time we release new budget projections, we report the revisions and we divide them into the effects of economic forecasts and changes to other technical revisions. if one stacked all those up, one can get a sense about how much the debt has changed or the deficit has changed for any given year relative to any particular path projection than one could look at. we have not tried to do that. an important part of what's

happening is the economy is strengthening. so receive news are a larger share of g.d.p. in 2013 thn they are in 2012 in our projections here. another factor is the -- some specific pieces of legislation that had effects on the deficit. the recovery act is an important piece of that. it was passed in 2009 and important source of reduction in some categories of spending over the past few years has been the tailing off of the extra outlays that occurred under the recovery act. there has also been caps established -- cutbacks and caps established on discretionary spending. but to really pars out or have a quantified answer to your question, we need to be specific

about the starting point you had in mind and the comparison point. we somewhere baseline projections but people may have other starting points in mind. they may want to be starting from something else and then you have to do a different set of calculations. we don't have a view about how much has been done in that sense. we are really focused on what we see are the issues here forward. >> tom curry with nbc news. you say a number of points in this report, you talk about the historical points in the last 30, 40 years. going back to the 10-year treasury, you're saying by the end of this budget period, it will be 5.2%. the 40-year average is 7%. do you look at that average and say -- >> what i meant to say, adjusting for inflation, we have

a real interest rate on the 10-year treasury note projected to 2023 that is higher than the average real inflation adjusted rate on treasury notes in the past. inflation rate of 2% is lower than the inflation rate we have seen in the past. i think you are making a comparison of the nominal interest rate and i don't have the facts at hand. the way we think about this is to think about what inflation will be and what real interest rates would be and add those pieces up to get a nominal rate. >> i'm from "national journal." what the balanced budget would be in 10 years? is that through nondefense discretionary spending or will that require in 10 years changes or significant cuts to entitlement programs? >> well, that's a good question.

so in our projections, there's a table that shows discretionary spending year by year and total over the period. table 15 and that is page 23 -- 26 and 27. so you can see there -- if you look at the right-hand page, page 27, 2/3 of the way down, total for nondefense discretionary spending in our baseline and that totals $6.4 trillion. if one were to aim to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction, not counting interest but just in the policy changes and achieve in $4 trillion out of that category, 2/3 reduction in

nondefense discretionary spending relative to our baseline. if one tried to do it out of discretionary spending as a whole which amounts to $13 trillion and it would be about 30%. and i said that $4 trillion is in its alternative path would end up with a deficit that is close to zero in 2023. whether that particular time path is the one that anybody might decide to do, we don't know. we picked some simplistic linear path to deficit reduction. but the gap between spending and revenues is very large and that means that changes -- changes you would need to eliminate that gap will be large relative to outlays or taxes. would require large changes if one split the impact across

spending and taxes and even if one split it across taxes and and changes needed to balance the budget are very large and even the changes needed, as i discussed to bring debt down relative to g.d.p. would be significant changes. >> if you just cut $4 trillion of nondefense discretionary spending, what would the federal government look like at that point? >> well, it would look like a much smaller thing that looks like now. remember, nondefense sneagsary spending includes a wide away of government activities. about 15% of that or so is education and training. another big piece is transportation. i think mostly of highway

construction. there's a big piece that is health-related, of which a large share is funding the national institutes of health. there is a big piece of that that is veterans' health care. there is a piece that is involved in international affairs, a piece, administration of justice. afflet lot of different -- an awful lot of different activities. what the government would look like is how those cuts were distributed across those various activities. one of the points we make in the report the caps on discretionary spending and the sequester on top of that would reduce both defense and nondefense sneagsary spending to low levels in a share of the economy than what we have seen in the past decades but policy makers haven't confronted what programs would be eliminated or reduced to meet

those totals because the funding for that spending is only provided by congress in annual appropriation acts. no decision has been made or really could be made about what will be cut later. and one of the risks we see in our budget outlook when it comes down to making those specific decisions about what programs will go away or debately reduced, will be difficult to meet those. >> could you talk about what is going on about health care costs. >> health spending has grown slowly over the past few years, both in federal programs and in the rest of the health care system. we think that part of that owes to the recession and the loss of income and wealth, but we think

that a significant part of that probably does not stem from the recession. probably arises from structural changes in the health care system. the critical question is whether those structural changes are very transitory or whether they will persist. we are talking with outside experts who are investigating the same question. i think the short summary of that is we don't know. the slowdown is fairly broad-based. we have seen it in public and private programs. and within public programs, it's fairly broad-based and we have seen it in the part of medicare that pays for hospital care, physician care and drugs. but that doesn't tell us or other people really what's going on in a way that would let us draw firm conclusions about the duration of this effect. we mention this in the end in

append discs a and talk about the revisions to our projections, we say since early 2010, we have been surprised by slow growth and spending in the federal health programs. 2012, medicare and medicaid spending were 5% less than we expected they would be in 2012 back in the beginning of 2010. we have seen that savings already. and we have over the past few years watching those data come in, mark down our projection of health spending. since 2010, we have taken our medicare and medicaid spending by about 15%. that amounts to $200 billion. for this reason. there are other changes, of course, in our health projections, economic factors, legislation and so on. but the changes that were technical, due to our observation of the slowing growth have led to a reduction in medicare and med said

spending each of about 15% until 2020. we expect it to continue for a while, but we don't know. this is one of the sources of great uncertainty. >> is it accelerating or just sort of -- i mean? >> the best way to characterize it is the growth has been slow and slower than analysts have expected a few years ago. looking for in our analysis to try to pin down the causes, we are trying to turn up the magnification on that, but we have to be careful about that, because there are an awful lot of movements in health care over time that had not gone anywhere after that. we should be careful about drawing too much conclusion from the particular timing, but we have seen enough for a long period of time that we think

that it is something real and not just related to the business cycle. >> how is medicare absorbing the baby boomers? are they paying in more than they are bringing out? it seems counterintuitive to think -- >> when i talk about the slow growth, the spending per person. we are extracting, how many 65-year-olds there would be now. we are just at the leading edge of baby boomers being eligible for medicare. the 6 -year-olds and 66 year olds tend to be healthier than the average medicare beneficiary. there shib some slowing in some reduction in medicare growth -- medicare spending per beneficiary to bring in a lot of people at the younger end -- the aging population is debately increasing in the number of beneficiaries in medicare.

but relatively to the overall number, what is increasing, the younger ones, they are less expensive. those are things we can project into our calculations. the things that are surprising others are the cost per person after adjusting. >> where does it leave the blueprint? 6% and now it's -- >> we have a nice statistic in here that medicare spending -- since 2009, spending for part a and part b has risen by 2.9% per year. this is on page 57, footnote 6 in the right-hand column. since 2009, spending for part a and part b has risen by an average of 2.9% per year compared with annual average

growth of 4.8% from 2008 to 2009. and we focused on part a and part b because part d was introduced in the middle of that period. >> [inaudible] >> what the federal government might do to reduce federal health spending further and there are different avenues, this may be worth emphasizing, despite the slowing in growth, we still see substantial growth in federal health care spending over the next 10 years and beyond and that is important because the number of people who will be eligible for medicare will be rising very sharply. and this is true for a number of people rising and that is for social security as well. in 20123, there will be about 40% more people receiving

benefits through the survifere' benefits in social security than 2012. a 40% increase. those people will be in medicare as well and in medicare -- but the effect in medicare is not just the number of people but the cost of per person. 2023 relative to 2012. 40% more beneficiaries. so the disability insurance is growing more slowly. just in numbers of people who will be receiving the medicare subsidies for their health care are growing so rapidly that costs will grow rapidly even as costs per person doesn't grow at all. medicaid is also affected by the aging population because it pays a significant share of long-term

care in this country, nursing home bills in this country. >> in your estimates, you have taxes going to 19% of g.d.p. in a couple of years, which is 1 percentage point greater than the average the last 40 years of 18%. what is the reason for that? and second question is, you project under current law that the deficits over the next decade are roughly $7 trillion and you don't have a number for the alternate fiscal scenario and can you give us an actual number if you include some of the current policies being continued. >> yes. so, we do actually have an alternative fiscal scenario but given it less prominence than we have given it in the past. we offer, as we have many times in the past, a long table that

shows the budgetary effects of particular changes in policy. and the last row of that table is that labeled alternative fiscal scenario. so this is on page 33, change in deficits from the alternative fiscal scenario. page 33, just above the memorandum lines and you can see on the far right side that that set of policies would add 2.088 trillion to deficits over the decade and $450 billion of debt service. so the deficit as a whole would be $2.5 trillion larger than what we show in the baseline. and the alternative scenario includes all of the pieces essentially of our previous alternative scenario that have been allowed to expire.

it includes the effect of the tax provisions that are still scheduled to expire. it includes the effects of the sequester. and it includes the effects of the medicare's payments to physicians. >> i don't think there is a simple answer to the question why more revenue would be collected. our income tax system left to its own devices will show over time a larger share of income being collected in taxes because of what is known as real bracket creep, as real incomes rise, even with tax brackets they will be pushed into higher tax brackets and pay more. one of the reasons that tax revenue is wide is because of this creep. if one compares the next decade, you need to think of whole collection of changes in tax

policy as well as changes in the economy, shifts? distribution of income and so on. and i don't have a decomposition of that. >> the 2013 sequester, the president chipping away at the problem today, is it fair to say that we should go back to multilaterally things to lock in deficit reduction now? would that be a better way to approach this than the small ball they are playing today? >> we don't make recommendations on policy because we don't do that. it depends on their swrument and about the role of the government and depends on their assessment of political possibilities and those are issues that we have no special expertise in and don't engage in. what our report does show is that we have a large imbalance. we have large projected deficits, a debt that will

remain at historically high share of g.d.p. and will be rising at the end of the coming decade. what that implies is that small changes in budget policy will not be sufficient to put the budget on a sustainable path. but what sorts of changes should be made when to address that, not our place to say, beyond i think the simple line -- i finished my opening remarks with, which were that the sooner decisions are made about any given changes that will take effect, the more time that households and businesses have to adjust to those changes. we are living now through a gradual increase in the full retirement age for social security that was put into law 30 years ago. and not everybody is planning ahead their retirement for 30 years, but i think the idea that there were changes under way that might change people's

behavior, i think was important. and if one pushes sharp changes in benefit programs, one faces a risk. it's worth remembering here -- and because of that concern, i think, changes in certain retirement programs are sometimes only made for people under a certain age and it's worth realizing that connection that the baby boomers are starting to retire now. 60% of baby boomers are already age 65 or older. and five years, 75% will be 65 or older. when one thinks about possible changes for benefits for older americans, we are just at the point where we will either make changes to people who are either already in or about to be in these programs or we will not be making changes for this very large part of the american

population whose retirement is the fundamental cause of this increase in costs. but again, that doesn't say what ought to be done. it simply illustrates the consequences of alternative policy actions. >> you mentioned 30 years and coming to plan for the change in the official retirement age. people who are 50, who are not -- who are under 50, 50 is the cutoff and gives people roughly 17 years to prepare for the changes. have you looked at any point as to what the appropriate age is, how much build-in when we are making changes to these entitlement programs? >> i don't know. i think the example of the social security eligibility age is one of the striking examples of a change being set in motion a long time ahead of its effect.

obviously other changes, smaller changes are made less frequently. i don't have a broader sense i'm afraid of what sorts of changes should be made. part of the point here, though, we are confronting now in our country changes of a sort that we have not had to make in the past. when one looks back over the last 40 years and leave aside the effects of the recession, if you look at the two decades before that, we had spending on social security and the major health care programs that was offset as a share of g.d.p. by decline in defense spending. we made budget room for extra spending in those programs in the past by reducing the share of the economy's resources that are being devoted to defense. that's not a strategy that can be repeated in that magnitude

over the next 40 years, because defense spending has come way down as a share of g.d.p. and because of demographic pressures and the spending of those programs are so intense. we had never really confronted i think quite the pressure to either change spending or to raise tax revenue in the way we are confronting it now. any other questions? ok. thank you all very much for coming. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> at 8:00 eastern, president obama unveiling his plan to avoid the automatic spending cuts scheduled to take effect on march 1. then house majority leader on immigration policy and the house republican agenda and and then nancy pelosi marking the 20th anniversary of the family and medical leave act.

>> the thing that coolidge did, when he left office, the budget was lower than when he came in. that's the story for us now. well, how did he do that? the economy grew a lot. maybe more than 3% sometimes. unemployment was down below 5%. the balance was -- the budget was balanced. how did it help the economy? a lot, because he got the government out of the way of the economy. >> we trace the life of the 30th president of the united states in "coolidge," sunday night at 8:00. >> during the presidency of her husband james madison, british troops invaded the capital in 1812, she saved a portrait of george washington. meet dolly madison, one of the

women who served as first lady. "first ladies, influence and image, their public and private lives and their influence on the president". season one begins presidents' day on february 18. >> the house progressive caucus today unveiled a plan to cancel the automatic spending cuts scheduled to take effect march 1 and replaced those in $900 billion in new tax revenue. congressman keith ellison and representative grijalva are co-chairman of the progressive caucus. >> my name is keith ellison i'm co-chair along with

representative gri halla. and members of the group are looking at this fiscal situation that our country is facing and we have a vision of how our country should go forward that includes balance, that includes fairness and equality. we have already seen $1.7 trillion in cuts, cuts, vital programs that affect everyone from teachers to education programs and all sorts of things that help improve the lives of americans. we believe that fairness means there should at least be equal amounts of revenue we should generate. we have come together to support what we call the balancing act which says we are going to take that $1.7 trillion in cuts that have been made and go get the same amount in revenue in order to deal with our fiscal issues and we are going to deal with

the real problem, which is good liveable jobs and put $300 billion into that and help teachers and improve our school buildings and help americans of all kinds. so with that, let me ask my co-chair representative grijalva to come forward and talk more about the balancing act. >> very briefly, we are heading toward a perfect storm with the sequestration, the budget resolution and postponed debt ceiling decision. which shouldn't be a decision. and all you have been hearing from the majority in the house and the republicans in the senate is austerity, austerity, cuts, cuts and avoiding the whole discussion of the fact that those -- that attitude and philosophy is only going to worsen the economy if the sequestration goes through, that

is 660,000 jobs lost the first year and the balancing act is about creating revenue and creating revenue from sources that should be on the table, but aren't being discussed on the table. balancing act is about investment in this term with jobs, education, r&d's in order to grow and stin the recovery we are on. investment in this term. and we all recognize the deficit is an issue, but an issue over a long-term and the balancing act by repealing sequestration, creates for us in this country an opportunity to continue to recover and stabilize our economy, invest in things that we need for the future and put on the table revenue that is not there that needs to be part of the revenue generation that we

need in order to deal with the deficit issues of this country and what is so needed for recovery. >> january schakowsky. >> thank you. i'm happy to be here with the progressive caucus talking about a sensible alternative, because here are the facts. full imenttation of the the sequester would threaten jobs both in the private and public sector. the congressional budget office has said sequestration would reduce economic growth by 1.25% this year. so there's no doubt the sequestration would harm the economy. we need to make sure that the sequestration is go being to be replaced, it isn't replaced by something worse. the president has already signed into law $2.4 trillion in deficit reduction and most of it, three-quarters of it comes

from spending cuts. spending cuts could have a real impact. it's time that we take off just the green eye shade and look at the people behind the cuts that have been made, $600 million cuts to community health centers. $500 million in cuts to the women, infant and nutrition program. that is taking food out of the mouths of babies. $1.6 billion in cuts to environmental programs, $400 million cuts to home energy assistance. $29 million in cuts to the community-oriented policing service, the cops program. and i talked to municipalities in my district they talk about the layoffs that have already occurred. this means jobs were lost and weren't created and services were cut to families and smart investments weren't made.

but the republicans are insisting on additional deficit reductions from even more severe cuts including social security, medicare and medicaid benefits. and just to point out, the poorest class of adults in the united states of america are people over 65 years of age with median incomes of $20,000 a year. don't be bullied and go after them. what my colleagues and i are offering today is a smarter alternative that would close tax loopholes for the wealthiest individuals and corporations and cut through military waste and create one million new jobs by investing in infrastructure and keeping teachers in the classroom. what the balancing act does is offer long-term deficit reduction in a fair and balanced way. balanced means in addition to smart, targeted spending cuts which we aren't against and raising revenue, we need to put

people back to work. growth is the third and least talked about leg of deficit reduction. without job production, we will be extremely, if not impossible difficult. austerityy measures would create our deficit problems. by decreasing reliance on safety net programs, increasing taxpayers, improving our debt to g.d.p. ratios. job loss under sequestration would include 16,000 school teachers and aides and 20,000 head start teachers. ask the american people if that's what they mean by cuts. we need to create education jobs by investing in teachers, modernizing schools and efforts that would create more than 300,000 jobs. the balancing act includes these ideas. and we are ultimately included

in the president's american jobs act which never got a vote in the house. teaching, modernizing schools and rebuilding our transportation infrastructure which the balancing act would do, those are the jobs that our communities need and those are the jobs our economy needs. our legislation pays for those investments by including smart military cuts under sequestration, across-the-board cuts allow for little discretion, really no discretion. it would cut waste and streamline our military to meet 21st century threats. raising receive news from those who can afford to pay more, creating jobs, not only will those efforts restore through balance through deficit reduction, but those are the american people keep saying they want. the balancing act is the much smarter way to go. thank you. >> barbara lee.

>> thank you very much. and let me thank our co-chairs, mr. ellison and mr. grijalva for their really outstanding and consistent leadership, pushing for a commonsense approach to solving our nation's deficit woes and more importantly our economic woes and that means creating jobs. i have often said that budgets are moral documents and reflect our values and our priorities. the balancing act really reflects our valuing people over weapons programs and prioritizing long-term job creation over shortsided cuts to education and to our infrastructure. as chair of the congressional progressive caucus' peace and security task force i'm pleased that the balancing act included smart spending reforms to the pentagon, which we all know is the largest federal agency and

loses billions of dollars every year through waste, fraud and abuse. many of my colleagues recognize that no serious plan to address the deficit can go forward without significant pentagon cuts on the table. it targets $278 billion in wasteful pentagon spending and re-invests those dollars in our teachers, our rhodes and our future. -- roads and our future. these cuts will undermine our national security. only the wasteful, excessive and bloated spending is targeted. i'm especially pleased to see that this bill includes enforcement language that will audit the pentagon. these measures would increase transparency and accountability with the pentagon budget and get us on a fair and balanced road to fiscal sustainability. oftentimes, my colleagues don't really realize that the pentagon

has not been audited and cannot be audited and we need an audit and we are calling for an audit of the pentagon. i'm going to re-introduce my bipartisan bill as a separate stand-alone effort to keep wasteful spending at the pentagon in check. the bottom line is we need to completely re-evaluate the bloated pentagon budget and scrutinize each item. there's no reason to continue spending billions on outdated weapons programs. i'm very proud to stand with my colleagues today inputting forward the balancing act which again is a commonsense approach to reducing our long-term deficit and creating an economy that works for all in a fair and balanced way. thank you again for your leadership. >> we have jim mcdermott -- and jerry nadler. >> let me start by thanking our

two co-chairs. the balancing act is designed to prevent the catastrophic events of sequestration while having a long-term balance between cuts and receive news. from kids and seniors to small businesses and the military, sequestration is a disaster. its effect would be devastating to our economy and we would eliminate thousands of jobs and it would be a million jobs. there are two problems. one, all the specific cuts. cuts to children's food, cuts to everything that is useful and essential. cuts across the board, weather forecasts, hurricane forecasting, to airline air traffic control. you name it. fewer -- fewer inspectors for meat, food, you name it. everything the government does

that when it doesn't do it, you will see catastrophes. second of all, our economy is very precarious our economic growth is between 2% and 2.5% a year. c.b.o. said it would cut it in half. cut our economic growth in half. that would cost us over one million jobs at a time when we see the result of this kind of stupidity in europe. if you graph economic growth and unemployment in the united states and key european countries, it's very interesting. unemployment is going up -- rather, going down until 2007. spikes upward in both the united states and europe because of the recession. starts coming down at a slow pace until 2010. in 2010, american unemployment keeps going down at a slow pace, but the europeans go way up

again. they did their equivalent of sequestration and adopted austerity budgets. we have cut the budget deficit in 2009 with 10.1% of g.d.p. of the economy. in 2012 fiscal year, 7.1%. we cut 30%, the fastest reduction in the deficit since the demobilization after world war ii. it is too fast and hindering our economic growth. we do not have a spending problem. if you look at spending, it's going down, except for food stamps and unemployment insurance which always go up during a recession. when the unemployment goes down, the food stamps and unemployment insurance, spending will come down. when we get unemployment back down to 5% where it was in 2007, that by itself, no, anything, just getting the unemployment down to 5% will reduce the

budget deficit by 40%. so our priority at this point ought to be economic growth, putting people back to work. this is what this is designed to do. instead of the sequestration which would destroy our economy, take almost $1.2 trillion out of the economy and throw a million part of work and reduce our economic growth rate by half and maybe into a double-dip recession as the policies did in europe, we say don't do that. maintain your spending level but cut your deficits by increasing taxes on the very rich who are not paying the taxes. and on those segments of the tax loopholes, talking about getting rid of tax loopholes that promote investment and jobs abroad. why should the taxpayers subsidize moving jobs abroad? let's get rid of those tax loopholes and let's invest more money in transportation and

infrastructure. that will generate another million jobs. it's a net of two million jobs. and won't destroy through the sequestration and it will not destroy the economy, which is where we are headed otherwise. >> jim mcdermott and judy chu. >> thank you and it's good to be here with my colleagues to talk about a decent way to deal with the problems of this country. the republicans polled the word spending and found it to be a very effective word. if you listen to them, every sixth word they say is spending. now the problem with this country is not spending, because the republicans don't mind spending on useless wars or on tax giveaways or on programs they refuse to raise the revenue

for, they don't like programs that help people and jan talked about the programs that will be cut. what is really necessary here is to look at the question of revenue. where does revenue come from? revenue comes from people working and paying taxes. when you have as many people unemployed as we have had in this country, the revenue goes down. so if you want to deal with revenue, you've got to produce jobs and you do not produce jobs by stopping investment. my favorite one in this and the stupidest thing in the whole list is cutting the national institutes of health. the research that is done there is driving a huge industry, the medical-industrial complex. and that is where we raise lots of money. but if you stop investing in research, you are going to have us drop down to become a third

world country and be done in europe or singapore or other places in the world where they are still investing. now, the other place you can get revenue is from a fair tax system, one that hasn't been gamed. and if you look at our tax structure, the list is as long as my arm, but let me give you a couple. carried interest. hedge fund managers play games with carried interest. they make billions, i mean with a b, billions of dollars, and they don't pay taxes as much as the secretary working in their outside office. there are estate taxes that are just absolutely -- we have given away the estate tax. now this was put in by a republican back in the early 1900's, because it's fair. people should give back to their country that made it possible for them to live so well. that's what the estate tax is all about. you can take care of your kids

and take care of passing on businesses, but the excesses ought to be returned to the country for further investment in this wonderful country that we really are. another manipulation is the s-corp. taxation. we have people -- people decide how can i get out of paying taxes all together? i think i will form an s-corp. and then slip off and don't pay the taxes that are necessary. we can close tax loopholes and come up with a lot of revenue and by investing, we can create jobs that will raise the revenue. today's news out of the white house, the deficit is down now. it was 1.4 three years ago and then 1.1 and now it's down to $850 billion. it is coming down because the unemployment is dropping and people are going back to work. and that's how it will happen.

but it will not happen if we make these insane cuts that you just cut across the board, you don't know what you're cutting. and that's the real problem with the sequester, is there's no thinking whatsoever behind it. it's a mindless whacking away at the budget as though if the government isn't spending money, then everything will be perfect. that's clearly not true. and it's always necessary for government to invest both in human beings and infrastructure. we are going to do it and the balancing act is a good way to get it done. >> judy chu. >> sequestration was never intended to be good fiscal policy and never intended to be policy period. if these cuts take effect, the american people will be truly harmed by the representatives that were sent here to serve them. that is unacceptable. we agree that we need to reduce our long-term deficit, but need to do it in a balanced way.

there's nothing balanced about across-the-board reductions that cut deep into every aspect of the federal government. schools, health programs, law enforcement, research and development, under sequestration, none of these are safe. the balancing act is proof positive that there is a better way. there is a way to address our debt without holding the american people and what's more? it's common sense and simple. balanced budget cuts by closing loopholes for the yacht-owning class. investing in infrastructure and teachers. paid for that by bringing our military budget under control and getting rid of giveaways to corporations that do not need them. and instead of balancing our books on the backs of the poor, this has tax increases so everyone gives a little but no one has to give a lot.

the balancing act is a commonsense solution to budget cuts that never made sense to begin with. as i said, sequestration was never intended the to. let's have the balancing act instead. >> we now have time for questions if anyone has any. we got some pretty sharp people right here. >> reworking tax code, what do those things look like? >> so the receive news that we generate are closing loopholes and the example of some of them include things like one, fossil

fuel industry loopholes. at a time when chevron and exxonmobil are making record profits, we close a whole series of loopholes which we know will generate significant savings -- 94? >> 94 billion. we carry interest. yachts and those sort of things, we close those loopholes. that is a smaller amount, but significant and every penny counts. those are the basic loopholes. jerry has a list. >> the list is -- limitation on certain deductions and exclusions, $482 billion. close the carried interest loophole. jets and yachts. $4 billion. close international tax system loopholes, $161 billion.

and fossil fuel tax loopholes, $94 billion. earned foreign income. corporate deductions for stock options loophole, $25 billion. and s-corporation $13 billion and reduce corporate meal and entertainment to 25%, 70 billion. those are the tax reforms. >> look, we can actually get to a solution if the democrats would stop talking about yachts and oil companies and things like that. how do you respond? >> he's saying if we don't ask the wealthiest americans to help, then we could go to a exclusion? that's ridiculous. so senator mcconnell is saying

if we don't ask revenue from the wealthiest americans and fossil fuel companies that are making record profits, then we can get to a solution? that's ridiculous. the only way to get to a fair solution is to ask people to give a little bit of that back. >> in addition to which, remember the republicans throughout the campaign last year said let's close tax loopholes and lower rates so it will be revenue neutral. these tax loopholes don't serve any function. they don't help the economy. don't be revenue neutral because we need money to close the deficit and to finance investment to improve the economy. what he is saying in effect is we must reduce the deficit by cutting spending on things that the american people need. and he is talking not only about the sequestration but they would

reduce the sequestration and take it out of medicare, medicaid and social security and call that flifmente reform. that's what they mean. don't take it from things that americans need but from useless tax loopholes and don't reduce the amount of money in the economy by reducing spending beyond what we have already done, $2.2 trillion in reduction spending. to do that beyond that is to probably cost us a million jobs and forego the investment is another million jobs. the c.b.o. says if you let the sequestration go into effect or did other cuts even in not across-the-board cuts but chosen cuts that would reduce economic growth in half and we don't want to do that. >> mitch mcconnell is a bully because he is more than willing

to talk about asking people over 65 years old who are getting -- actually 67, who are getting social security, people on medicare over 65 to pay more, to wait longer. and asking us not to talk about people who have yachts and furs and diamonds. really? i think what the american people are saying what they fear most about the fiscal cliff that we just went through, the sequestration, about the debt ceiling and what's going to happen is that their medicare and social security is going to be cut and that's exactly the kind of thing that mitch mcconnell is more than willing to do and wants us to be quiet about the wealthiest americans. the majority of people think the best way to solve our problems is to ask the wealthiest people to pay more and they are right.

>> back here? >> i'm wondering what this will happen in the future. >> well, there isn't anybody >> anybody who was here last time we had tax reform, 1986, when reasonable doubt reagan came in he started talking about it, it took six years of talking, between him and tip o'neill and everybody around here to build enough trust to get tax reform in 1986. it took a year of transition to get it in place. it was a major effort. the problem today is there is no trust because mr. mcconnel has undercut everything the president has tried to do from the first day he was elected. and he continues to do it and he's right out in the open in today's press. and without that kind of trust, you can't sit down, because you have to trust somebody to say, i'll put this on the table, if

you'll put that on the table. and you begin to make the choices that have to be made to have tax refrm. so anybody who talks about tax reform is talking about some other place today because no one is going to do it in 15 minutes. in the ways and means committee, the finance committee, the senate, it will not happen until people start trusting one another. >> one last question here. >> tell me your thoughts on president obama's se quester -- >> we need to get rid of the sequester. the president is trying to do the best he can with a difficult situation but the right thing for the american people is to not do the sequester. i think congresswoman chu said it right, it was never intended to be policy, it was a fail safe because the supercommittee was supposed to manage this, but they didn't.

this was not intended and we should not allow it to go into effect. we should do something wise like a balancing act. that's it, everybody, thank you very much. >> let me say one thing -- one thing about that. anybody who goes back to their state and talks to their state university os their state government and talks about the sequester realizes we have paralyzed the whole country. because until you know what the federal government is going to do, you can't plan a state budget. and so what wie doing here is screwing up 50 states around the country, 50 educational systems, 50 social systems, everywhere, nobody can plan because you don't know what's going to happen. that's what's wrong in kicking it down the road. it should be decided with something like the balancing act. >> thank you, everybody.

>> tonight on c-span at 8:00 eastern, president obama unveiling his plan to avoid the automatic spending cuts scheduled to take effect march 1. on c-span2 at 8:00 p.m., house majority reader eric candor -- cantor on immigration policy and the house republican agenda. on c-span3 at eight, house minority leader noncy pelosi marking the 20th anniversary of the family and medical leave act. >> if you go to most american history textbooks, i would almost bet if you go to the textbooks you had in high school, that's if you can take me up on my bet, but my bet with you is that in your american history textbooks in high school if you go to the index, you'll find no mention of eugenics. my further bet is if you go to your biology books in high school you'd find no mention of

the word eugenics. i looked at a biology book assigned by most of the courses here, introbuy yow courses at montana state university, great textbooks, but i didn't see any mention of eugenics. it's as if because we, meaning scientists, no longer believe in eugenics, we don't have to think about it. it's as if we, historians, because we know eugenics -- eugenics was so awful, we can protend it wasn't part of american culture. >> eugenics, on c-span3's american history tv. >> the congressional budget office today released its economic forecast for 2013. c.b.o. director doug elmendorf spoke about economic growth, unemployment, and planned spending cuts. here's a few minutes of that.

>> we anticipate that economic growth will remain slow this year because the gradual improvement we see will be offset by a tightening of fiscal policy under current law. the good news is the effects of the housing and financial crisis appear to be waning wetch expect an upswing in housing construction, rising real estate and stock prices and inveesing availability of credit will help to spur a vir schal cycle of faster growth and employment, income, consumer spending and business investment over the next few years. however, several policies that will help to bring down the budget deficit will represent a drag on economic activity this year. the expiration of the two percentage point cuts in the social security payroll tax, the increase in tax rates on income above certain thresholds and the

cuts in federal spending scheduled to take effect next month will mean reduced spend big both consumers and the government. we project that inflation-adjusted g.d.p. will increase about 1.5% in 2013 but that it would increase roughly 1.5% -- percentage points faster if not for the fiscal tightening. after the economy adjusts to that fiscal restraint, we expect growth in g.d.p. will pick up to about 3.5% per year in 2013 and the following full years. -- following few years. but the gap between the nation's g.d.p. and what it is capable of producing on a sustainable basis, what we call potential g.d.p., will not close quickly at that rate of growth. under current law, we expect output to remain below its potential level until 2017, almost a decades after the

recession started in september of 2007. by our estimates, g.d.p. was more than 5% below its potential level in the fourth quart over last year, a gap only modestly smaller than the gap that existed years ago because the growth in jut put has been only slightly faster than the growth in potential output. the nation has paid and will continue to pay a very large price for the slow recovery. >> you can see all of doug elmendorf's conversation with reporters later tonight on c-span, at 8:45 p.m. eastern. >> the single thing you want to remember is when he left office, the budget was lower than when he came in that's story for us now in a period where we're concerned. how did he do that? the economy grow a lot. maybe more than 3% sometimes. unemployment was below 5%.

the budget was balanced due to his parsimony. how he managed to get the budget to go lower and how did that help the economy? a lot. because he got the goth out of the way of the economy. >> amity shlaes traces the life of the 30th president of the united states in "coolidge," sunday night at 8:00 on c-span's "q & a." >> during the presidency of her husband, james madison, as british troops invaded the capitol in the war on 1812, she's noun for saving a portrait of george washington and other valuables from the white house. meetle toly madison, one of the women who served as first lady in c-span's new original series, "first ladies: influence and image." produced with the white house historical association. season one begins president's day, february 18, on c-span,

c-span radio, and c-span.org. >> some of the automatic spending cuts delayed by congress in december are scheduled to take effect next month. on the next "washington journal" we talk about those cuts as well as proposals for increase revving knew and changing entitlement programs such as medicare and social security. at 7:45 eastern, our guest is republican congressman michael burgess of texas, and at 8:20, democratic representative henry waxman of california on climate change policy. live every day on c-span at 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> we want to welcome back to our table, scot garrett of new jersey. serves on the budget and financial services committee. let me begin with you where i began with our previous guest here, jim mcdermott. this is the "national journal" from today. ."

is this accurate reporting? are the $85 billion in automatic cuts go through in -- on march 1? guest: it seems we are going in that direction. republicans have taken the position that the obama administration has gotten the tax increases they have want. taxes ha gone up on american families. revenue is up. now americans are asking congress to do the rest of the project, which is deal with the spending side of the equation and none of us want the across- the-board cuts you would get

with the sequester. americans would like congress to do its job and try the areas that need to be cut. that is a two-way street. the white house has never set down on the other side of the table to engage. host: if the sequestration goes through, $85 billion across-the- board, what does that mean for the economy? guest: it means we are implementing what was agreed to in a bipartisan agreement in the past cycle. remember, all the parties sat down and said how can we work this through, and what is the amount of money we need to be spending? republicans and democrats started at different points, but came to an agreement that we need to begin cutting spending to the tune of $1.2 trillion over 10 years, so basically it

would be and lamenting a bipartisan agreement. host: so, what is the likelihood of this happening? guest: 80/20, 73, 20 -- 27, who knows. it has been leaning in that direction ever since the budget control act went into effect because the white house has yet to engage. what needs to be done is entitlement reform. that is what america has been asking for, what congress has been asking for, and something the president says he wants to do but never gives us anything in writing. it was the term before last when the congressional budget office said we cannot score a speech and they are referring to the fact to the president saying

this is what he wants to do, giving a speech, but he never put it in writing in legislation. we need the actual piece of legislation, the written proposal so that we can engage. host: republicans do not even come to the table until we see something like that? guest: we are already at the table, putting out proposals and making suggestions. republicans have passed that through the house. we are not going to negotiate with ourselves. we fervently want to go sheet with the president so that the -- negotiate with the president so we can move forward. what it means for the economy it means more jobs would be cread, higher paychecks, more prosperity -- all of these good thgs would happen if the white house would just begin to eage in the process. host: today, the cbo gives out

there 2013 economic outlook. what do you expect them to say about the sequester and how do you think that impact negotiations? guest: it probably helps because i have been on the budget committee for 10 years now, the longest-serving member, and every year we have experts come in, including from the cbo, experts from the left and the right,roups from various walks of life, the cretin republican organizations -- the brookings institute, the cato type organizations, and they all say the same thing. if we do not do something with regard to entitlements and trying to reform it, to make sure that seniors receiving benefits today will be able to receive them tomorrow, next week

and the rest of their lives, and people that are about to go into entitlements will receive it for the rest of their lives. if we do not do something today -- not as harry reid said, there is a problem with entitlement reform, and we can wait 20 years. that problem it's today. -- it's today. we need to address this immediately and both sides need to come to theable, and we are waiting for the white house to get there. host: we will be covering that announcement from the cpl on c- span two at 2:00 p.m. eastern time. there it is on screen. let me ask you about the house. "the washington times" reports president obama missed the deadline for the fourth time on the budget. the house is going forward with the plan act. can you explain what that is and are there enough votes to pass

it? guest: all it says is the house of representatives hasone its job, actually passing a budget and we did a bill one week ago saying that if the senate does not pass a bill, a do not get paid. that is pressure on the senate. we cannot stop the president from being paid, though we are passing a bill that says he should present a budget that actually balances in a reasonable time, how about 10 years -- last term i was on the budget committee, and the director of omb comes into our committee and he is there to present the president's proposal at the time and i asked one simple question. i said can you tell me when does the president's proposal balance? when does it come into balance,

income equal to expenditures ha, and he could not answer the question. at the end of the day the president has never given us a proposal or a budget that actually balances not in our lifetime, but ever. it never balances. all we are saying is give this -- a budget that balances eric host: and this passes -- balances. host: in this passes in the house? guest: i think it does. host: eric cantor will give a speech, and we are covering it here on c-span. the point is he will be talking about -- he said this morning to one of the morning programs -- we need to tell the american people what we are about, what we are going to do.

has he talked to the rank-and- file about this speech? preview it for us if you can? -- if you can. guest: he has not gone through all the details, but republicans are going around the country, getting into the if you can. nitty-gritty, and that is all well and good, especially for a program like this, but there are a lot of people that do not g into the weeds. we are really good about talking about the features of the program, and you are really good about asking the questions. what republicans might not be as good about is talking about the benefits. one of your second or third questions did go to this point among the solutions for the economy, and republicans need to do a better job -- what are the

benefits of our program, entitlement reform, nitty-gritte up with a proposal on an alternative to sequester, the benefits of some other proposals we have not talked about on energy? i have seen on the news how energy prices are going through the roof again. what are the benefits of the in the eds discussions we do on energy production? we have to do a better job, and eric cantor is going to try to broaden the discussion on those areas. host: john, texas, republican. welcome to the conversation. caller: good morning, congressman. it is really simple -- medicaid , we are spending over $400 billion a year on that program alone. the government has said they want to keep government out of thbedroom.

i am not talking about nursing home people, but all the others having one, 2, 3, 4, five children and we are picking up the costs. that is one area we can tale. my mother is 85 years old and paste a $100 deductible -- pays a $100 deductible. why can't we not force people on medicaid to pay a premium? if they cannot afford it, they should not be in the bedroom. cut food stamps and the child tax credit. that is a start. guest: or are a number of good ideas, let's take the one on medicaid. here is part of the entitlement network that we have created in this country, one that,, as with many programs in washington, started with the best of intentions, and as the caller, john stated, but moved out of control.

the caller is suggesting one way to more than tweak it, but a broader wa and i think john would agree, would be to throw it back to the states and allow them more flexibility as to how to control and manipulate change and make it so that those that need the services will get it, and those that should not be getting it are not, and where subsidies should come from. allow the states, the incubators of experimentation on these things, to be able to do those things and customize them. whatever state he is from, they could listen to john and try to dot over here, and those in new jersey could do it a different way. host: grace on twitter -- it is

not the president's job to do the house's work. the house is responsible for passing a budget, and not one that adds $6 trillion. guest: right, exactly him so the president has added about -- exactly. so the president has added about $6 trillion to the national debt. in the first 200 years of this country we raised about $10 trillion in debt. the house is responsible for spending bills and the twitter person is correct the constitution says spending bills originate in the house of representatives. the president certainly is supposed to engage in discussions on the expenditure side of the equation and the revenue side and he has engaged. we have passed budgets.

they go to the senate, and the senate has not passed a budget in over four years now. host: holly, riverside, california. democratic caller. caller: i am a baby boomer and i had a question. i remember during president reagan i paid double on social security taxes to ensure there would be no problems and i hear a lot of speakers y there is not a problem if we would that at a certain amount and it could be fixed. -- that at a certain amount and it could be fixed. i think the real problem with entitlements is the republicans are rolled by corporations -- ruled by corporations. we saw this on bill moyer's

show. it was proven that they write the bills. i say the republicans are representing corporations. during the last election, they showed another machine that was pushing the boat to romney -- vote to romney instead of president obama. why are republicans in charge of these voting machines? host: a couple of issues there. guest: republicans are in charge of voting machines? i guess they did not do a good job because romney did not win. i could not go more into detail on that, but there were accusations both ways. the democrats won. as far as republicans on the side of big business, that is

one of those myths out there that has continued to be spread by callers such as this one. if you look at what happened over the last four years, the administration, a lot of people would say, has been on the side of wall stre, the big banks, and she was from california, i think? that is where solyndra was from. bailing out companies like that. her tax dollars went to bailing out companies that even the administration said should not be bailed out with her tax dollars, but somebody had a connection with the white house and they eventually went out of business. as far as her first point, where we should be trying to make cutbacks, and should they come from other areas of the ledger sheet as opposed to where she said, the entitlements, which were paid for by her -- again,

that is somewhat of a myth. part of the entitlements we paid for by her, but not all o the entitlements. for example, when president george bush enacted part d of medicare, and ipposed a republican president, seniors got a new benefit, restriction drug care. the -- prescription drug care. the day they got that benefit, they did not pay for that benefit at all. if you are 70 years old, you did not pay for that. who paid for that question mark your children and grandchildren -- for that? your children and grandchildren will be paying for that. host: your response to congressman mcdormand and -- mcdormand and grace that says we are t doing entitlement

reform, see the 2012 election. president obama won, and entitlement reform will not happen. guest: going back to the features and the benefits, let's get to the benefits -- you do not do entitlement reform, these programs are not sustainable. they will not exist ase ow them. those people that tweet in and say we are not going to do it, go back to this caller, their moms and dads that are on the program, receiving benefits, they will not be able to receive them indefinitely because those programs will run out of money. that is not me saying that heard that is experts that run the program -- saying that. that is experts that run the program from the left and the right that say we are on an

unsustainable course. if you take all the revenue we take in in taxes, there is only enough money to pay for the entitlements, including social security and some of defense and the interest on the debt. anything else in washington as we look out this window, there is no money for it. we have to have some sort of reform so that paren, senior citizens will be able to receive benefits they are currently receiving. host: coppersmith jim mcdermott also said raising the eligibility -- congressman jim mcdermott also said raising the ellen -- eligibility ages a backdoor way of of trying to get people off of medicare. guest: as paul harvey would say, now you can hear the rest of the

story. anyone who knows theistory of this program note when medicare was set up 75 years ago, the life expectancy, which he undressed, was not what it is -- addressed, was not what it is now, and the vast majority would not have received any benefits. they would die before they would receive their money out of the program, but life expectancy, fortunately, has expanded by about 10 years and that means people are living longer a receiving far more benefits than when the program was related -- created. we now need to address that. people are living longer, healthier lives, and my mom will be 91 in june. she is independent and that is all great, but we need to make sure there is a program that will be in place for the rest of her life. host: christian, seaport, new

jersey, republican caller. guest: thank you. i wanted to bring you back to new jersey, and it has come to my attention and i have brought to the attention of the transit board, governor christie, all my representatives, that the new jersey transit bus fleet, half of it is being leased to privately run companies for one dollar per year per bus. theyet to pay the fair wage thing with the unions. they been a delay that number and a drivers a far less amount. theyo not get the same benefits. it -- guest: they do not get the same benefits? host: they do not get the same benefits, they get half the fleet, split with three or four

families, and i do not know if they all and in vowels, but most of them do, and my point is these are cash cows, and they use these for everything from the new york marathon to the conventions. they are making hundreds of thousands of dollars and the owners of these companies are getting free auto buses. what is the point? this is corruption. can you do anything about it or bring it to the peoples attention because i have tried. host: i will leave it there, christian and have the congressman respond. guest: i will have someone on my transportation staff look at this, and the caller would say i know this, and i knew the o aspect that new jersey has a

lease agreement with a private company to do this. my understanding and i will dig into this more to check it out, some of this business is just not a profitable business to run. that is why states have authorities, and why towns run transit buses because it is not a money-making venture. if it was making money, you would not needew jersey transit. everybody would be runni it. you need services, and so you will make an arrangement for people that want to be in the business but they know they would not make money if they had to buy them all themselves, so they get a sweetheart deal, and another term would be a substitute -- subsidy -- you run the program because we are not going to run it.

i guess what the caller is saying is that is not being done fairly, going to sweethet deals in three or four places. i doubt that governor christie would allow that. host: oklahoma city, democrat caller. steve. caller: good morning. i am a democrat but i tend to stay independent with things. it seems like the republicans -- it might not be true, but there is always the appearance that youant to push the pain on a broader section and towar the bottom. to that, i had a couple of questions. what is your stance on competitive bidding for rd medicare? -- four part d medicare?

also, the simple fix for social security of raising the cap might even if it is just to say 200,000 dollars, and i am sure your mom did not lay bricks, so raising the medicare age to 67 for someone that laid bricks their whole life might not be great. host: congressman? guest: the caller is correct, she did not lay bricks, budget a lot of jobs. she worked for the, a dental asn later years. but you are right. on that point, the idea -- i guess his point is when you talk about raising the age, can you do it? what sort of career, what sort of rights do you have? that is an interesting discussion to have.

it gets more complicated because you could say i laid bricks 30 years ago but now for the last 20 years i have been sitting behi a desk running a tv program or something like that, so you are ok now. it gets complicated to figure out how you do that. but all this should be on the table. to your earlier point of the discussion, as far as can we raise the age of social security to be sustainable? so raising the cap question, and the part d question was -- i was opposed to part d, adding a new entitlement that was not paid for. i opposed the white house, president bush, and the republican party because i did not think it was something that was paid for. as far as the negotiation aspect of it, once you have the federal government involved in something like that on this level, it is not a level playing field to say

that we are going to have negotiations on it. so much of the industry -- you talk to the pharmaceutical industry a defined out that a percentage of drug manufacturing goes to seniors. you and i do not fit into any of those territories -- any of those categories. so once you start dictating the price, effectively you are going down a road of wage price controls. the other ways you can get to the benefits, making sure that this caller and other callers canave affordable prescription drug care. host: on twitter, this question , "even if we are living longer, we work the same amount of time and contribute even more, why should we reti later?"

in's go to jacqueline arizona, a republican caller. caller: good morning, how are you? my question is, i am a superintendent on in the it -- of a school on an indian reservation. we are one of only twoederal school systems in america, the the part of defense and the department of interior, that i am very concerned about sequestration and the impact it will have an indian children on reservations who are already underfunded. we are totally dependent on congress, and i am just worried about the whole -- it is going to be devastating not only to my school on an indian reservation but other schools that depend on the aid. we cannot do any tax or bond on a reservation. i know you cannot probably say much, but im concerned about

impact aid. guest: i know about impact aid, not from where the caller is coming from, but in new jersey impact aid just means that when you have land in her case where it is federal land and you cannot tax it, the area needs some sort of subsidy. it has been impacted by the actions of the federal government, so how does the government compensate for that? you have it in other places as well. if you have a military base or some other federal institution in your district, the state cannot tax that. so it has an impact upon the area. so how does the federal governme compensate? she gets compensation through impact aid for the kids in the school. other areas for public services. that goes to an earlier point. sequester is not the best way for us to dohat we need to do,

which is to live within our means, within a budget that essentially gets balanced, make sure that revenues equal spend richer -- equal expenditure over time. the republicans do not want to do it and the democrats do not want to do it. we would much prefer coming up with targeted cuts, and some callers have suggested areas to target. we would much more prefer this is where we should cut, this is where we should cut, this is where we should not cut. we are more than eager to have the administration lay out the proposal so we can come out with an agreement. host: key legislative deadlines ahead. march 1 is sequester, march 27, expiration of possible government fundingpossible and government shutdown. guest: you want me to put numbers on these things. the first battle is sequestered. that comes up pretty quickly, at the end of this month, so three weeks.

so if that goes into effect, the next question is, do we basically keep us at that number, the 974 number. then we can say let's maybe retroactively try to see if we can figure ts out, keep it at that spending level. that is the one that everyone had agreed to in a bar partisan manner. but see if we -- in a bipartisan manner. that would be almost four weeks after the sequester would have hit. maybe there would be enough pressure on the white house to ben to engage with us to try to solve problems like sequester. host: you call it a bipartisan agreement, sequester, right? guest: yes. host: the speaker on the floor yesterday kept referring to it

as the president's sequester. guest: where the sequester comes from all family is the budget control act. -- from all to meles is the budget control act. the idea for the act is from the white house. host: you voted for it, right? guest: no. host: but it was approved? guest: it was approved. i stand corrected by the speaker, john boehner. the sequestered itself came from president obama and the white house. guest: so on twitter -- "we do not have a spending problem, we have a jobs and a tax problem. history teaches us reaganomics is a failure."

guest: we do have a spending problem. we have $16.5 trillion in deficit, unheard of, unthinkable years ago. the discount that and say we do not have a spending problem is ignoring the facts. the jobs proposal is what we have laid out in a number of areas. to your point that eric cantor will be giving a talk later on, maybe he will spend a few minutes onhis as well. we passed the jobs at. that again was a bipartisan piece of legislation, came through my capital markets subcmittee. i went to the white house to have a bill signed. that was something that was able to change regulations in this country. we have such an onerous imposition of federal regulations that it discourages job creation. we were able to solve some of this in a bipartisan manner. we have some ideas and of that going forward to change regulations going forward, to make them better, more thoughtful.

the tweet was something about taxes as well -- the united states is obviouslytill is an overtaxed country compared to other leading industrial nations. that is why jobs are fleeing this country and going elsewhere. we want to bringhese jobs back to america. you need a fairer tax plan and you can get more jobs through a better regulatory format. guest: 10 -- host: pennsylvania, a democratic column. caller: minimum wage was created to lift people out of poverty, but it has not been updated much. if we raise the minimum wage to $9 or $10 an hour to lift people out of poverty, it would cut food stamps and so many other social programs because people would need -- people would not need them, and it would bring tons of tax revenues to the cities, states, and federal government. one more thing -- letting

medicare negotiate for drug prices like the v.a. makes sense. the more you buy, the better you get. guest: can i ask you, do you run your own business? caller: no, i do not. guest: thanks for the question, vince. i guess if we carried the thinking that vince has on minimum-wage, and i know a lot of people have this view, if you take the current minimum wage and make it $10 an hour, if you work $2,000 in a year, that is $20,000. if you make $20,000 in a year, that is $40,000. if you make $40,000, that would be $80,000. there is really no limit then as to where you should raise the minimum wage to because you could make everyone rich under

his thinking. the facts do not support what he is saying, getting into the weeds of this. that is this. when you raise the minimum wage on someone over here, you discourage the -- that is why i asked vince whether he is an employer -- you discourage an employer from hiring over here. if you are running a restaurant or a small manufacturer and you are paying someone at minimum wage, and you have three or four people working at that wage. if you are now forced to raise it more than that person is a value to that company, as far as what he is able to generate for that business, what do you have to do? sadly, you have to lay off somebody else. or worse from that, you have to have these people go to part- time positions where they no longer get any benefits.

that discourages people from having people on full time. it encourages businesses to put them in part-time positions so they are not covered by regulation. both of those things are contrary to vince's position that raising minimum wage does not lift up the country, it pushes it down as people are losing jobs, losing benefi. host: farmingdale, new jersey, an independent scholar. jim. caller: mr. garrett, you seem to have a real command of the facts of the economy. i'm just wondering why you have such a problem getting the message out. this president said he was going to cut the deficit. he went from a $6 trillion economy to a $9 trillion economy. his jobs plan was a complete failure. the democrats talkbout the war on women, yet you have this mr. menendez who flieso a southern

country, has sex with an underage gal, and does not want to pay this prostitute. here's a guy who makes all kinds of money. it is ridiculous. the democrats had senator byrd in the race -- in the senate for years and they talk about race. you guys do not seem to be able to get your message across. i know you are frustrated. it is not a spending problem. of course it is a spending problem. we never have budgets like this, throwing money at all times of all kinds of different programs. how many more democrats talk about, i did not cheat on my wife, i only did it when her cancer was in remission.

guest: the caller has raised a number of different points. one point, the overarching theme of his call was the frustration he has of republicans getting the message out. i do appreciate c-span allowing us to get the message out, but it is a frustrating one. we think we have a good message, we think we ve the right answers to it. we think we are working on the facts like the previous caller with regard to minimum wage or so of these other ones with regard to health care. we have proposals that we have done. we passed them out of the house of representatives. it has been frustrating over the past two years where the senate, all bills -- all good bills go to diapered we cannot get spending and revenue bills passed through their that would -- we can fight on and do what we believe is right in the

interest of the american public to create jobs and a better economy. hopefully people like the last caller will help to spread the message. host: what do you think should happen with this investigation, whatever is going on with senator mendez? guest: i guess there are different elements to it. the element that washington, most closely would be engaged in the ethics allegations, so that is something that needs to -- people made the allegations, he has admitteto what he has done as being wrong. he took a flight and $58,000 for flights and he did not -- he waited two years because he did not know. $58,000 on flights is a lot of money, and i know things slip between the cracks, but for you and i if we spend $58,000 on air

fare, we would probably want to know about it and make sure that it is reported correctly. host: on that alone, do you think he should resign? guest: that is up for him to resign. he knows what he d, what he did not do. he makes those decisions for not only the people but his conscience as well. host: would you be interested in the senate one day? guest: let's take a look at that one day. host: indianapolis, independent college. caller: i have worked for the afl-cio also pretend we change the tax form -- for the afl-cio also. can we change the tax form? i cannot chart social security. guest: you would be willing to send a check in for something or

other to help the program? caller: to help the program. number two, on the bus question from earlier, a few years ago some department subsidizing bus transportation said the city could no longer run the bus to the speedway for the brickyard or the 500 because it was taking away private enterprise. trying to get the private industry to come in and run the buses the way the city used to run them. host: congressman? guest: i guess it goes to points in certain areas where it is profitable and other areas it is not. i will try to dig into that a little bit more. on the social security donation, that is why i come here. your callers are pretty good with new ideas. there have been provisions were you can make donations.

we hear a lot of people who say that the rich are not paying enough, they are not paying enough. most people do not say that they are not pay enough. i have supported in the past, if you think the federal government can spend your money better than somebody else, why not? social security is a good program in that sense. whether they will be added to the line, hopefully will solve or address as security -- address social security before people make anonymous donations to the program. caller: i would like to know why the representative and his cohorts, for the poor people that have no money, they want to t their benefits. yet the ceo's of these large corporations are making millions of dollars for their salary. the government is subsidizing these big corporations, but no

one ever says anything about that. as far as social security, i have paid into social security all of my life. i am sorry -- medicare. i have paid all of my life into medicare. i started working in 1965, and i have paid. so why is it you want to call it an entitlement? that is a debt owed to the people who paid for it. now, if you want to cut down on social security benefits, start at the top. if they can afford to pay for all medical, let them pay for it. guest: a couple of questions. her first point as far as subsidies to corporations and these businesses that are making millions of dollars -- salaries in millions of dollars -- i agree completely with what the caller was saying. she says republicans and their

cohorts may not be on the same page as her. we are absolely on the same page as her, and we absolutely past part of the budget last year that it absolutely what the caller said, but it never did. what our budgewould do was to say to those big businesses that are subsidized, we are going to end your tax subsidies and close those loopholes so you will not be subsidized any more. if that means you have to cut salaries, so be it. o we will and callers like herself paying taxes and having it be subsidized. she has a democrat senator saying, senator, why didn't you support the republicans on ending those loopholes? we are on the same page. host: 1 last caller. wendy from iowa, republican.

caller: i am a law-abiding citizen, a taxpayer. i run my own small business. i have been a day care provider for 18 years coming up in april. my husband and i have been maied 30 years. he gets a sple w-2 form. we bring it in, we file our taxes every year. this year we have made three attempts, and i'm wondering -- you people cannot even do the budget, and i cannot even file my taxes. my husband and i cannotet our taxes filed, neither can a lot of peoe. we wonder, too, what was going on, "as a result of action by congress to pay for the taxpayer relief act of 2013, many of the forms used are not yet available and will not be for a few more weeks." i make a whopping $13,000 a year, i put in 10 hours a day.

i am very dedicated. i work hard. my husband has been at the same job for 30 years, and we work and pay taxes and cannot even get our taxes filed. onchecked with h&r block' saturday and monetary every day and they are supposed to contact us. th will take your information, but they are waiting on congress, the government. how are you people supposed to do a budget if you cannot even -- american law-abiding citizens cannot even file their taxes this year? guest: she is pressing the frustration that i have had for this past several years under this administration. she is expressing the frustration that i have had for this past year, the past four years. you are right. in order for us to do what she needs to have done, to make sure that tax fms are in place and out to her and me and you, you

need to have a number of things in place. one of those things that should have been done was passing a budget. the house republicans passea budget year in and year out. we sent them over to the senate, and the senate never took action. i am with the caller. she needs to call again. her senators, to find out what is going on in the senate. why did they mess up and not do what they were supposed to do? we pass a bill thatays no budget, nsenate p, harry reid will do what he can to get a budget passed. host "justice to sue s&p on the major ratings they gave for cred default swaps." will the financial services committee be digging into it? guest: we will see where justice is going on this. we saw this way back when don frank was coming through the

process and we were able to make summit -- when dodd-frank was coming through the process and we were able to make some changes and they should not have their stamp of approval on every single transaction. that was one of the things we pushed for to pass, that was not right with the system that we have now. we will see of justice goes further with this action. host: do you support the move? guest: i have not read their briefs and their >> i would almost make a bet that if you go back to your american history textbook, you go to the index, you find no mention of eugenics. my further bet with you is that if you go to your biology books in high school, you'd find no mention of the word eugenics.

i just looked at the biology book assigned by most of the courses here for intro buy yow -- bio courses, great textbooks, but i didn't see any mention of eugenics. it's because it's as if we, meaning scientists prk no longer believe in eugenic well, don't have to think about it. it's as if because we, historians, owe that eugenics was so awful, we can somehow pretend it wasn't part of american culture. >> eugenics in 20th century america, part of >> president obama looked at avoiding across-the-board spending cuts that are